The President's Daughter (20 page)

“The society's attention is to be directed exclusively toward the colonization
of free persons of color and contains no allusion to slavery. Denunciation of slavery is unconstitutional, but the society is permitted to represent colonization as an antidote to slavery and as tending to effect its abolition at some future date.”

“Anything the legislature of Virginia approves must be bad,” interjected Thance.

“One of the framers of the resolution was none other than Thomas Mann Randolph. Thomas Jefferson's son-in-law!” exclaimed Purvis. “Sometimes I wonder if the solution is
not
another country,” he added.

“Robert, that's ridiculous,” I almost shouted. “Negroes are Americans. They are born in America. It's their country. Why should they be deported? The first slave ship arrived in Jamestown at the same time the
Mayflower
arrived in Plymouth!”

“Bravo, Miss Virginia—-”

“Black soldiers fought under General Jackson at New Orleans. Even
that
slaveholding general admitted they had partaken of the perils and glory of their fellow white citizens. Jackson even told the President how valiant these soldiers were, and promised that the government would reward their exploits as they deserved. And what do they get? Colonization!” interjected Thance.

“Not from Monroe, at any rate,” I said, remembering him riled at my father's dinner table, pleading against both compensation and colonization.

Purvis turned and studied me quite carefully. His eyes had iridescent irises which turned over images like a magic lantern. The plaintive expression of his face gave him the allure of someone who was always about to say something, then had thought better of it. I realized I had made a great mistake in mentioning the man who had been my father's private secretary and was now President. It was too specific. Too close to the truth.

“Well, that's really funny, coming from you,” joked Purvis.

“Oh, that . . . that's just Virginia,” I replied.

“This kind of thing doesn't only happen in Virginia,” he answered.

“You know, Robert,” I blurted out, “you could be white. I never would have known.”

“I know. I thought you white southerners could spot us a mile away, Miss Virginia,” he laughed. An interesting aspect of the American caste system is the phenomenon called “passing” . . . passing, that is, for white. No one knows how many light-skinned slaves pass into the white population, and whose descendants stay there. The effect of passing, whatever its extent, is to neutralize the effect of miscegenation, race mixing, which is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment in America.”

“Fancy that . . . ,” I replied.

“All slaves in Louisiana should have left with the British,” continued Purvis slowly, still peering at me. “At least, upon setting foot on British soil, they would have automatically been free.”

“You mean simply by arriving on British territory one is emancipated?”

“Why, yes,” he replied, astonished at my naivete. “One can't be a slave—or a fugitive slave—in a country which no longer recognizes slavery.”

Purvis and Thance excused themselves to take their seats in the men's section. Charlotte took the seat on my right, but I hardly noticed; my mind was on Purvis's last words.

My blood quickened. Simply by arriving in London, I could change my status from fugitive slave to freedwoman. I could escape two moral dilemmas at once: the one imposed by my father and the one imposed by Thance's proposal. I could be free of both “crimes” at the same time.

My attention turned toward the stage, where a speaker was describing his escape to the North. He had escaped dogs and armed slave patrols, had almost drowned, had suffered frostbite and eaten raw rattlesnake. He had pried a bullet out of his forearm with his teeth and had drunk his own blood to keep warm, and he had pulled out half his hair to keep his sanity. His wife had died under the lash, and his epileptic son had been fed arsenic by his master. I thought of my luxurious ride to Philadelphia and my first meal at Brown's Hotel. I thought of my deception of every friend I had. Was there a creature more despicable than I? Halfway through the narrative, Charlotte grasped my hand with trepidation. I looked down at the two clasped hands. They could have belonged to the same person.

“There is no dawn for the slave,” the narrator ended. “It is forever night.”

There was a hush in the hall. Charlotte disengaged her hand. I rose, wishing solitude, my eyes brimming with tears, but the woman next to me, sensing my anguish, took both my hands in hers.

“Oh, my dear girl. Don't despair. This battle for emancipation of the black man shall be
won,
I promise you. Now, you may differ with me as to the mode of operation, as to the best means of obtaining a common objective. You might think that first the chains that bind the Negro slave ought to be
lightened,
whereas I think the chains should be thrust
asunder.
You might think, for plausible reasons that we ought to
mitigate
the rigors of slavery and
alleviate
the condition of the Negro, while I think that the first thing to be done is to resort to the eternal principle of
justice.
But, although we might
differ
as to the means of attaining the ultimate object, I'm sure we differ not at all as to the
object
of the common aim—the utter extinction of slavery.”

“Oh, I do believe in the utter extinction of slavery . . . even if it means the extinction of my own family.”

“You're a southerner, aren't you?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, God bless you, my dear. God bless you. Oh, pardon me, my name is Mrs. Lucretia Mott.”

“Harriet. Harriet Petit of Virginia.”

“While there is one slave, can any American woman say she's
free?
Can any American woman say she has nothing to do with
slavery?”
I nodded my head in agreement.

“ Truth
is the same for all humankind. There are not truths for the
rich
and truths for the
poor,
truths for
white
and truths for
blacks,
truths for
men
and truths for
women;
there are simply truths.”

I had never heard a woman speak as she did. I listened intently as she continued.

“Nowhere but by my investigations of the rights of slaves could I have acquired a better understanding of my own rights as a woman. The antislav-ery cause is the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood than any other. Is this country a
republic,
when but one drop of colored blood shall stamp a fellow creature for a slave? Is this a
republic
while one half of the whole population is left in civil bondage and sentenced to mental imbecility? Can you truthfully say, as an American woman today, in 1825, that you
are free?”

“No.”

“Come, after the meeting, you must meet a friend of mine who is to be a delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention in London this summer, where in this very year, five thousand four hundred and eighty-four petitions have been presented in the name of abolition. Her name is Dorcas Willowpole.”

“Is this some kind of slave auction?” I murmured angrily to Adrian Petit over our weekly lunch at Brown's Hotel. “Thance has already spoken to his mother. His mother has already spoken to you. You've already replied. Charlotte's mother has already told Charlotte. Thance has written his brother. Charlotte's told me about my own engagement. I suppose you've written Monticello? Don't you think I might be consulted?”

“Harriet, you are wearing Thance's ring.”

“That his mother picked out—”

“That belonged to his mother and his grandmother. That's quite different. Why are you in such a panic?”

“I thought the North would be different! I thought I would find freedom! Equality! Instead, I've found how white people really feel about the Negro!
They believe my brothers, my mother, my uncles, my family are beneath contempt—a race so steeped in immorality, sloth, insensibility, and lack of intelligence that nothing they say either in front of them or behind their backs can offend them! They hardly know that we have seen the backsides of white people too long to be shocked. How can I marry one of them? They who are supposed to be so strong, so superior, yet are so frail the least opposition sends them scurrying for cover.”

“Oh, Harriet. How can you say such a thing—”

“How?” I interrupted. “The United States government wants to deport the whole free black population of America back to Africa whence they came. But not the slaves—oh, no, they don't belong to themselves, nor back in Africa. They are to stay because they are too valuable, but free people of color are expendable.”

“Where did you hear this?”

“At the Anti-Slavery Society meeting last night.”

“Harriet. Let's put things in perspective. Our small dream has little to do with the politics of slavery!”

“And why not? I'm a fugitive slave. As much so as the poor man whose tale I heard last night. Am I not considered just as much a criminal as he? And as black?”

“Harriet, what can I say to you? This is all beyond my competence. I'm only your guardian, not your conscience. Why don't you write to your father and mother? Unburden yourself to them and abide by their judgment. Surely your father must have known you'd be faced with this predicament if you passed for white. He must have some philosophy.”

“Yes,” I replied bitterly. “You told me his philosophy. ‘Since she is white enough to pass for white, let her be white'—that's his philosophy! Be white and keep quiet. Endure the insults, the contempt!”

“And what about your mother? Surely she can help you.”

“Oh, I know her philosophy: ‘Get that freedom for your children.' That was my grandmother's litany to the day she willed herself to die ... freedom at any price. At any price, even this one.”

“No one promised you it would be easy, Harriet.”

“No,” I said wearily. “Nobody promised me anything. . . . I'm not going to marry Thance, Petit.”

He looked up to see if I was joking.

“And pray why not, Harriet? You have everyone's blessing.”

“It's against the law,” I whispered.

“What! Not this again?”

“But imagine if he found out from a third party!”

“From whom, Harriet? Me? Who knows, and who would tell?”

“Everybody at Monticello knows. Everybody in Charlottesville knows. Everybody in Richmond knows. Three presidents know! Callender let the whole damn world know!”

“What they know is that a Harriet Hemings exists, perhaps. They don't know that Harriet Petit exists. Or Harriet Wellington.”

“My children won't know who they are.”

After a long silence, Petit said, “Harriet, Thance loves you.”

“I know. That's why I'm leaving Philadelphia.”

“Leaving?”

“At the library company's meeting of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, I met Lucretia Mott. She introduced me to Dorcas Willowpole, a delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention in London this September. She was looking for a travel companion. She offered me the job, and I accepted.”

“You did what?”

“I accepted.”

“Thance will never allow you to go.”

“Thance is not my master.”

“Why so far away, Harriet?”

“Automatic emancipation. Setting my foot on British soil makes me legally free. Just as it did my mother, forty years ago. A multitude of fugitive slaves have done the same, have tasted freedom there. Don't you see, Petit, if I go I will no longer be an escaped slave, but a free woman in reality, not in deception. And I'll set Thance free. He will no longer be committing a crime for which he could be imprisoned or fined, just as my father could have gone to jail over my mother.”

“Harriet, don't be crazy!”

“I'm perfectly sane. Mrs. Willowpole and I have decided to go to France after the convention. Paris has always haunted me, Petit.”

“You're running from happiness just like your mother when she
left
Paris. Your mother gave up freedom for love, and now you're giving up love for freedom.”

I knew Petit was using his most potent argument to hurt me. He was desperate.

“For truth, Petit. I must free my heart. Perhaps there is a ... different kind of happiness . . . without Thance.”

“You might also invent another algebraic equation for yourself. One part slave, one part criminal, one part victim, one part lover, one part opportunist, one part coward, one part thief, one part tragic heroine. Why make Thance
unhappy over something neither he nor you can change? Can't you just postpone the wedding? Perhaps make Thance understand? Tell him the truth! “Harriet, give Wellington a chance; tell him.”

“I
tried
to tell him. He didn't
let me
continue. And I'll never marry a man I can't tell! I'm going, Petit.”

Petit rose and came toward me. I backed away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I'm thinking how much you resemble your uncle James.”

“No one forced him to return home.”

“Oh, yes. Your mother. He was not going to let her return to Virginia and slavery alone. He was not going to let her throw away her freedom. . . .”

“As I'm doing?”

“I don't know what you're doing, Harriet. Or think you're doing.”

“Don't be angry with me.”

“I'm not angry, Harriet. I love you. I only want you to be happy.”

“Then you can see I can't lie to Thance about who I am.”

“I see you have a genius for making yourself unhappy. Just like James.”

“I'm proud to be like him.”